


All Your Broken Pieces - Steve’s Abstract Realism & Platonic Love

by lokivsanubis



Series: All Your Broken Pieces - Stuckony Parts of the Raising Peter Parker Series [2]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Body Paint, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Everyone Needs A Hug, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Masturbation in Bathroom, Multi, Painting, Parenthood, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Steve Rogers, Sexual Content, kinda it's cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 08:13:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16783108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokivsanubis/pseuds/lokivsanubis
Summary: Steve had a rough start in life, a large heart, a small chest, a death sentence a week into existence and yet he had overcome. He had a knack for caring for others, a quick temper and a  strategic mind. He promised his mother when he went off to war, chasing his best friend, “I won’t come home to you in a box, Ma.” And yet here he was running headlong to return an active grenade to an insurgent stronghold and volunteering for suicide missions trying to find aforementioned best friend or what had happened to him.





	All Your Broken Pieces - Steve’s Abstract Realism & Platonic Love

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my first character study kinda on the Steve from my Raising Peter Parker Universe.
> 
> There's some Russian in here as course with other stories in this universe. Brock Rumlow continues to not be a total tool. And We get to see things from Steve's POV.
> 
> WARNING!!!! WARNING!!! POSSIBLE TRIGGER!! 
> 
> * Bucky was considered a POW and there is a scene here with the Casualty Notification Officers coming to Bucky's parents home. This maybe triggering so you have been warned.

-=-

Steve stared blankly at the large canvas in front of him then to the paints at his side. White canvas were something special, they reminded Steve of virgins. Untainted and filled with limitless potential awaiting a skilled touch or an amateur's folly to transform. 

Slowly Steve reaches for one of his brushes and paused dipping it into the black paint. He closes his eyes for a moment and flinches sending black flicks across the canvas as the sound of Peter knocking something onto the floor echoed down the hall. 

“Ластачка, тебе больно?” Bucky’s voice called from the hall after there’s no crying. (Lastachka, are you hurt?) 

“NO KIKI!” Peter screamed and then the patter of little feet is heard running down the hall. 

“ Иисус, Петр! Как это случилось?” Bucky shouted and the sound of his feet following after Peter. “ Ластачка!” (Jesus Peter! How did this even happen?)

Steve looks back at the white canvas now sprayed with large uneven spatters of black starting to streak. 

“Feels right…” He pursed his lips. Dipping the black brush back into another color and making a wide stroke. 

\---

Steve had been on leave for two days, fresh off a night run he was heading back to the apartment he shared with his mom. He’d done well being promoted quickly through the ranks for his valor and service. As far as his mom knew he was still a regular soldier when in reality he was the leader of a special assault team currently on rotation out of use. 

He paused seeing an unfamiliar car with government plates outside of their house. He reached into his pocket and no missed texts or calls. Something inside him urged him to go upstairs. 

He took the steps two at a time and at the sound of a familiar voice screaming sprinted the rest of the way. 

He turned a corner and paused, it was worse than danger. He knew that green uniform anywhere, Casualty Notification Officers, CNO. When was the last time he’d heard from Bucky? 

“Lada, you gotta calm down.” Sarah said as she knelt on the floor next to her friend. 

The small brunette buried between her husband and Steve’s mother’s frames. 

“не мой сын. я ... он был нашим единственным сыном.” Lada cried from the floor. ( Not my son. He was our only son.) “не мой сын. я ... он был нашим единственным сыном.“ her sorrow echoed down the halls and through the building. 

James carefully helped his wife to her feet. “I know.” He whispered to her before looking up, his eyes meeting Steve. “Would you mind welcoming them inside, I’ll be back in a moment.” He said helping Lada inside. 

When had Steve walked down the hall? 

Where did this coffee pot come from? He looked down at his hands and moved through the motions setting the table and pouring out the necessary mugs. 

“Rebecca, take your sisters back to bed.” Sarah directed the Barnes next oldest child when the teenage girl had come out to see what was going on with her sisters. 

The tall brunette teen nodded and ushered her sisters back to their room and closing the door. The apartment had three bedrooms, one for the parents, Bucky’s and then his sisters all shared one room. Bucky’s bedroom had lead to the fire escape as did Steve’s. The two of them used to sneak out from it all the time. 

The memory stings as he pours the coffee into the mugs. 

A moment later they’re standing there, Bucky’s father, James has returned. 

“I am Captain William Robinson from Company A, 2d Battalion, 21st Infantry, Fort Drum, New York.” (I make no claims this is an actual rank, company, battalion or title. Fort Drum is an actual military base in NY though). The man standing just inside the door greeted Bucky’s father. “Are you Mr. James B. Barnes Sr? Are you the father of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes?"

Bucky’s dad nodded, “Yes, Sergeant Barnes is my son.” He sat himself down in the nearest chair. He suddenly looked so old to Steve, like the world had just come barreling down onto his shoulders. Like someone had just turned all the lights off and no one was home. 

“The Secretary of the Army has asked me to inform you that your son, James B. Barnes has been reported missing in action in Sokovia since late yesterday. After a battle to advance the frontline James failed to return back with the remains of his unit. When we receive more information, you will be promptly notified. The Secretary extends his deepest sympathy to you and your family during this trying period.” Captain Robinson gave his report. 

“So Bucky isn’t dead?” James said looking at the young captain as if a light might have been turned back on. 

“We will reach out to you with more information as it becomes available. We’re sorry to have interrupted your evening.” The captain replied before he and his supporting officer left. 

“Stevie…” James said looking at the blonde still at the counter. “He’s missing… that means he could still be alive right?” He says the words afraid to hope. The words are dripping with it. 

Steve doesn’t remember showering, he doesn’t remember eating, he doesn’t remember anything except waking up the next morning asleep in Bucky’s bed in one of his old t-shirts and dried tears on his face. 

Steve cut his leave short and left his mother and grieving adoptive family behind to go back to work. He had to find out what happened to Bucky. He still remembered his mother’s words. Her parting words to him were always the same. 

“Don’t come back to me in a box Stevie.” She’d say holding his forehead to her’s and looking deep into his eyes. “Don’t make me have to bury you too.” 

“Don’t worry, Ma. I won’t come home to you in a box.” He promised kissing her forehead and then removing her arms from his neck. “Love yah Ma. Take care of the Barnes for me.” And with that he got in the taxi and was gone. 

\--

It was six months before the video surfaced through some backdoor dark internet shithole that had been so scrambled hacking it proved nearly impossible. 

Bucky was there tied to a chair with three other men. When the video ended the three other men were dead, Bucky’s chest barely raising and falling at all, his left arm mangled nearly beyond recognition. The message of the video warned. “You send your snakes and we’ll devour them.” 

\--

Steve violently slammed his canvas with a red cloth covered stamper filling the multicolored canvas with large red dots, oozing red paint down the image, just like blood oozes from a bullet wound. 

Steve stepped back to admire his work and reaches down on his work bench for a different tool. His hand blindly comes to rest upon the handle of paintbrush, it feels slim and smooth in his grip, just like the barrel of a gun. 

Had painting always reminded Steve of violence? 

  
He slowly lifted the brush remembering the faithful day. 

\--

Steve had promised his mother he would not come home to her in a box. He promised her he would be safe and would take care of his men. They both knew that was a contradictory statement. Steve didn’t have time to ponder it much more as he picked up the active grenade from just in front of the company’s hummer. They were pinned down and under heavy fire and yet these rat bastards decided to throw grenades. 

They had finally found information about Bucky, there was a minor chance he might even still be alive. Steve couldn’t afford to turn back now. Everything was hinged upon getting access to that strong hold. He had to get to Bucky. Something told him that Bucky was indeed there. 

“Hey! Cap!” His teams snipper chirped in his ear. “Now isn’t the time to be playing hot potato.” 

“Ha, I’m not. Do you see an opening?” He asked as he returned to returning gun fire with his men. 

“Yeah, I’m about to make one for you. Be ready.” He advised and they saw a small spark and then a large truck left open on the field was struck by an arrow igniting it into flames. 

“Fall back!” Steve shouted into his coms, “Air support incoming in 30 seconds!” 

Now the Jericho missile was a work of art. Repulsor technology was going to revolutionize how weapons were manufactured and implemented. The Jericho was a new release from Stark Industries and it was their incoming air support. The warhead itself was dropped and before hitting the ground it launched out four additional warheads. 

“Woah whatta show!” his sniper quipped. “Looks clear!” He added. 

They stormed the prison camp and began freeing the hostages and POWs. 

Steve wasn’t aware he had been injured. He didn’t feel it as he assisted clearing the stronghold and helping prisoners vacate. 

He didn’t feel it as he made his way through the stronghold with Rumlow and Wilson. 

“Steve, Cap you’re bleeding pretty bad we gotta go.” Sam said once Steve stopped at the first locked door they’d come too. “ Let’s get you to medical and have another team-“

The scream ripped though the hall. It wasn’t the type of sound a human should make. It was riddled with pain and desperation. 

“боль!” The horse screams echoed down the corridor. (Hurt!) 

Steve took off running he knew that voice anywhere and was thankfully tackled through the hallway opening by Rumlow getting both of them nearly killed. 

“Are you fucking crazy?!” Rumlow snapped at him before he and Sam began returning fire. 

Sam threw a grenade and once his exploded Rumlow three another. 

Once the last of the insurgents is cleared out they came to the source of the screams. A back door was open in the room the terrorizes have obviously escaped. 

Lying on his back, unfocused eyes glassed over staring at the ceiling and mumbling in Russian, was the shell of James Buchanan Barnes. The intel had been right. The soldier code names Winter had indeed been kept in this strong hold. He was strapped to the table torso bare and oozing scars and wounds across. When Sam goes to release Bucky from his bonds, Bucky doesn’t make any motion. Just continued staring at the ceiling mumbling to himself. 

“Стив Ребекка родная Эмма я не знаю сержант…”

(Steve Rebecca Home Emma I don’t know Sargent ) 

“Bucky.” Steve said quietly touching his friend once the restraints were removed. 

He didn’t respond. He just continued to look up at the ceiling mumbling over and over. 

Rumlow whom had been from Bucky’s actual unit stepped forward. “  Зима, вставай. Пора идти домой.” (Winter, get up it’s time to go home.) 

The mumbling stopped and some coherence returned to Bucky’s eyes after he blinked a few times. Baby blue eyes drifted to look at Steve. “ Ты настоящий?” (are you real?)

“Yeah, Bucky.” Steve said looking his friend over. His left arm, if you could call it that looked like it was festering. 

“Jesus, Bucky we have to get you to medical.” He moved to pick the brunette up and got pushed away.    
  
“НЕТ!” He immediately brought his unbound legs to his chest. “HET!” He began fighting them. (No!)

After several minutes of being unable to calm him down Rumlow shrugged and picked up his baton, “Доброй ночи.” (Goodnight.) And knocked Bucky out a quick snap to the back of the head. 

“REALLY?!” Steve snapped as he looked at the older Russian man. “ARE YOU SERIOUS?!” 

“You’re so compromised right now. I don’t even have time for you.” Rumlow replied. “You’ll be lucky if it doesn’t end up in the report.” He snapped. “Come on, Wilson.” He said moving to help Wilson pick Bucky up. 

As they were leaving the compound Steve noticed he was having a hard time hearing and it seemed like the edges of his vision was creeping up on him. 

“Hey!” Sam said looking at him odd. “Man are you alright?” He asked. 

Steve found himself leaning against the medical transport seat and having a difficult time trying to buckle his belt. Why were his hands shaking like this. 

“Rogers?” Rumlow said looking at him suddenly Steve’s head was tipped back. 

He could feel hands removing his vest and people cursing. 

He woke up after an 23 hour surgery, two days of his life completely gone and his chest bound in gauze and the sound of his mother’s grief stricken voice on the phone. 

Apparently he had been injured during the initial fire fight, they had removed 9 bullets and then untempth amounts of shrapnel from his body. He had nearly died of blood loss from the slowly bleeding wounds he had not treated. 

He would later receive the medal of honor for his efforts that day. But all Steve could think about and the first thing he asked when he woke up was, “Where’s Bucky?” 

\--

“Peter leave Mama alone, he’s working.” Tony chided as Steve turned towards his study’s door. 

“Mama, unch time!” Peter cheered coming up and jumping at him. 

Steve dropped the brushes in his arms and catch the boy, covering the tiny brunette in a multitude of paint splotches. 

  
“And now you both need a bath before lunch.” Tony replied amused. “ Is everything alright Steve?” he asked looking at the large canvas behind Steve covered in golds and red drops and black machine metal. 

“Yeah.” Steve replied. “I can take a break. Come on Pete bird. Let’s go wipe all this paint off.” He flung the small child over his back like a sack of potatoes following Tony out of the room. 

Peter’s laughter like tiny bubbles and balloons filling the empty room behind them lightening up the dark spaces. 

\--

Bucky’s left arm had been removed just above the elbow the scars are jagged and raw. He spends his days looking out the window of his hospital room unable to effectively communicate with anyone but his mother. Though he doesn’t know that’s who she was. It’s almost as if he’s forgotten everything and everyone. It’s obvious he understands when the doctors speak to him but he can only answer in his first language. 

Bucky snaps at a nurse when she attempts to take his blood pressure. He nearly breaks her arm. He’s now restrained to his bed. 

The restraints make it worse. Now he’s nervous and aggravated, afraid of everyone, except Steve and Lada. Steve undoes the bindings when he comes to visit. Lada refuses to see her son unless he’s unbound. 

This goes on for five months. Five solid months of staring out of a hospital window, five months of no communication aside from weak Russian words and mumbled phrases. 

Bucky is released back to his family. He comes home to his family apartment. He walks by the altar his family had placed for him on the mantel. He walks almost by memory to his room and stands at the threshold of the door. The familiar sights of his football jersey from high school, the old photos of him and Steve, of his sisters on the walls, the familiar bed with sheets made nice and tight. The smells of home, of Borshch on the stove, his mother’s shampoo and his father’s cologne and this room, that smelled so familiar like him and another. It was all so overwhelming. He closed the door and went to the couch to lay down. He couldn’t go into that room. It didn’t belong to him. 

That person was dead. 

Steve did not reenlist and instead took an early retirement. He dedicated the next 2 years of his life to helping Bucky recover. It had taken a lot of time and a lot of physical confrontation between them. Now they were in a good place. 

They had a routine. Jog in the morning, breakfast, constructive activity, lunch, physical therapy, constructive activity, dinner, sleep. It was working and Bucky was getting better. It took him nearly a year to pick up English again but once he began speaking it all seemed to come back. 

Bucky didn’t want to talk to Steve about what happened. He often spent his required therapy sessions sitting across from the doctor with a blank expression and nothing beyond Hi and Goodbye said. He simply seemed to be existing.    
  
Bucky was probably depressed. 

Steve was definitely depressed. 

Steve and Bucky move in with their old high school friend to his apartment in another section of Brooklyn. Things seem to be going well. 

Bucky smashed the bathroom mirror one morning and attempted to shove one of the shards through his remaining wrist. 

Steve and Richard discover him on the bathroom floor two minutes later. 

The ride to the hospital is in silence. 

72 hours later he’s released and all he can say is “sorry”. 

Steve doesn’t know if he has enough optimism for this. He looks at the brunette’s face and gauze wrapped hand. He slowly reaches out and places it in his. “We’ll get through this together, Buck. I promise.” He presses their palms together. “I’ll be with you till the end of the line. That’s the promise right? Just you and me?” 

Bucky’s fingers curl around Steve and they just sit there together waiting for Richard to bring the car around. 

\--

The idea that he might be sexually attracted to Bucky was planted by Mary Wilmar. A young blonde his friend Richard had started dating. The seed had been small but over the last few years it had been growing into some sort of wild vine wrapping around everything. 

He had dated several brunettes all of them fast talking, charismatic and in their own way charming. But none of them took priority over Bucky… He had unknowingly been the cause of many arguments between Steve and his lovers. 

Steve was fresh off another doomed relationship. Not paying much attention to celebrity knews. Or maybe he would have noticed the gossip mags commenting left and around about the absence of Tony Stark on the arm of Tiberius Stone. The collapse of Stark Industries 100 year old weapons program that had given them such unique weapons as the JERRICHO, RENEWAL & Q-5689 warheads. 

He might have made the connection when Mary invited him to dinner and drinks to meet her friend Anthony Stark, the inventor of the JERICHO warhead amongst other fine weaponry and current CTO of Stark Industries. But really all Mary had said was “Steve come to dinner with Richard tonight. I’m bringing my attractive single friend, whom needs to meet a good man.” 

Steve and Tony get along great, like coke and lime, honey and tea, ice cream and summertime. It’s a beautiful match. They date for a few months and have their first time together on Steve’s birthday, it’s magical (Steve’s also a romantic). He knows then and there Tony is THE ONE. He doesn’t want the brunette to see anyone else ever again nor does he really. (Except his eyes still wonder Bucky’s bare chest). 

The couple even adopted a pair of cats together, brothers named U and Butterfingers. They get along well with Dummy, Tony’s cat from his previous relationship. Steve wonders if this means they’re going to be together a long time now. They’re sharing living things. 

Bucky and Tony get along like oil and water. All raised hairs and glares from Bucky, he thinks Steve doesn’t notice and Tony just seems avoidant of the older brunette. This is not good. He’d taken Tony to meet Bucky because he wanted Bucky to like him too.    
  
Tony was now important to Steve. Just as important as Bucky. 

Bucky starts dating Rumlow, which is confusing to Steve because isn’t that guy already in a relationship with a man and his wife? But Steve doesn’t question it further and accepts what Bucky says as fact. 

Steve learns Tony is a survivor of domestic violence and that to stay together is going to take a lot of work. Steve is more than willing to work with Tony to get better. He’s already decided Tony is the one. 

Tony never one to be simple doesn’t extend an olive branch, instead he extends a first of its kind cybernetic arm, to make peace with Bucky. Steve can’t help but be elated when Bucky accepts. 

Now they’re spending time together again. Long hours in the workshop creating the perfect arm for Bucky. Working together to make Bucky “whole” again. 

Steve’s heart can’t help but beat faster as he watches Tony lean over Bucky’s mechanical arm, their heads nearly touching faces mere inches apart as Tony works meticulously on the finite movement of the arms innards. 

Steve wonders what it would be like if they kissed. His pants become uncomfortably tight and he excuses himself to the penthouse upstairs under the guise of getting coffee for everyone. 

He comes like he’s fourteen again into a hand towel in the bathroom completely embarrassed and confused, but his mind riddled with orgasmic ecstasy can’t make any direct distinction between right and wrong here. Blood rushed in his ears and back to his cock as he imagines Bucky kissing him and the sounds he would make. The idea of both Tony and Bucky on their knees for him. The thought of going to bed with them and waking up in the morning together so overwhelming.

Tony’s cleaning crew would find an abundance of hand towels in the hamper the next day. And Steve would be uncomfortable sitting for a while. 

Steve comes out of the bathroom to find Bucky and Tony have already ordered dinner and are quietly drinking coffee at the breakfast bar. Dummy is laying on the breakfast bar being pet by Bucky while Tony complains that Dummy knows better than to lay on the breakfast bar! Tony demands Steve talk some sense into Dummy. 

It was an accident, the day they had sex in the workshop. It had been one of Tony’s rules. I don’t fuck in my workshop because it’s a workspace. He had said. 

Steve had had other ideas. It had taken about twenty minutes of persuasion and another 10 for prep before they were into it hot and heavy on the couch. Tony had even agreed to face him this time. It felt so good being inside his partner, looking him in the face with his feet behind his head. Fuck he really loved Tony. 

It might have been his inner soldier, or maybe his inner beast that told him someone was there. He slowly turned still plowing into Tony, enjoying the feel of Tony’s feet on the back of his head, when he turned and made eye contact with Bucky, over Tony’s calf.. It happened so fast, he just snapped his hips into Tony’s and released. FUCK! What was he sixteen and losing his virginity all over again. DAMN. 

  
He had whispered out Bucky’s name only remembering he was in Tony when the younger brunette spoke. 

Bucky vanished just as quick as he had appeared. Oh shit!

\--

Lunch was good, Steve goes back to his studio to continue working on his latest creation. He looks at it and pauses. Something about it isn’t quite right. Instead he goes out into the hall and calls Peter. 

  
His son always willing to spend time with him came running over.    
  
Steve sets down two small canvases about the size of legal paper and some paints. “Copy Mama okay?” He says pouring some of the paint onto each canvas. 

Peter watched amazed as the red and blue paints mixed on the canvas. 

Steve slowly stuck one finger into the paint and began making a design. 

Peter immediately grasped the concept and with two hands Peter began filling the canvas with color. 

They do this for awhile. Steve creating an intricate design with only his fingers as tools and Peter mixing and slapping the paint around with his hands. With a squeal of pure glee Peter slaps his multi-colored handprint down onto Steve’s intricate canvas. Then he wraps his little hand around Steve’s bringing the older man’s hand towards his canvas. 

“Mama.” He motioned with his free hand slapping down on the canvas. 

“Okay Sweetheart.” He said placing his hand down on Peter’s artwork adding to the multi colored cacophony happening there. 

By the time dinner rolls around Peter is covered from head to toe with paint and is rolling around on a wall sized canvas Steve drug out for him. 

Bucky walks in looks at the two of them covered in paint and walks out shouted down the hall, “Котенок, поговорите с вашим мужем и ребенком.” (Kitten come talk to your husband and child.)

Tony walked into the the room looked at them and literally walked away. 

Peter decided to dash out the open door and now there’s multi colored hand and footprints throughout the house. 

Bucky and Tony glare at him from the large communal bathtub they have in their bathroom. The water is an odd color from all the paint and Peter is not helping as they continue to try and wash it off him. 

Steve merely shrugged. No one should assume he was the responsible one. 

\-- 

Steve looked at the neatly folded red sash in his hand and then to the gold and blue sashes in both is lover’s palms as they stood to his left and right. He couldn’t help but be overcome with joy. He looked down at Peter who stood directly in front of him and felt the pride in his chest overflow. 

This was a beautiful moment, one of the best in his life. He as going to get to bond with his two best friends in a ceremony that meant more than any piece of paper could. 

When the priest reached out for the red sash in Steve’s hand and requested they all provide their right arms for bonding Steve couldn’t help but start crying. He didn’t have to look to know so were Bucky and Tony. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is Steve's POV. 
> 
> Hope you guys liked it. :)


End file.
